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It’s a miracle that we make it through some days. You know the kind of days I’m talking about. The day you have to say your last goodbye to a beloved pet, for example. I bravely held it together in the waiting room at the Vet’s office, but completely lost it once we got to the exam room. Through my heaving, snorting and sniveling, the people at the Vet’s office had to say things like,”Just nod if you understand, Miss Suzuki”. It was all very quick in the end and all I wanted to do when I got home was crawl under the covers and cry for the next 3 days. But then, I realized I was scheduled to teach a class just 4 hours later. Luckily, it was not one of my regular academic classes, but it was an exercise class called intenSati that I have been teaching on a weekly basis for the last four years. This unique workout, created by an amazing fitness instructor named Patricia Moreno, pairs physical movements from kickboxing, dance, yoga and martial arts with positive spoken affirmations (www.satilife.com). Each physical move is paired with a specific affirmation that you shout out loud all through class. Affirmations like:
“I am strong NOW!”
Or
“I will THRIVE….. Not just SURVIVE!”
It is truly a powerful experience to shout out these positive, uplifting affirmations in unison with a whole studio full of other pumped-up sweaty exercisers. The affirmations not only help motivate you to go full out with the workout, but their benefits last long after class when the positive affirmations float through your thoughts at random times during the week.
Leading my own intenSati class later that day shouting:
“I see the beauty all around!”
“My pure energy abounds!” was exactly what I need to lift my spirits that day.
In fact, ever since the very first day I walked into an intenSati class as a student, I noticed that these affirmations had a powerful and positive effect on my mood. But, as a scientist, I know that this is just a personal observation, not a scientifically proven fact. So I decided to dive into the literature examining the effects of affirmations on mood. What I found was a raging controversy in the popular press that has been at least partially resolved by some exciting recent scientific findings.
On the one hand, there seem to be a constant stream of articles, blog posts and books about how someone’s life was transformed with the use of positive affirmations. I searched for reference to any scientific evidence in these articles to back up their claims, but found little.
To counter the positive press on positive, affirmations there is growing anti-affirmation backlash arguing that positive affirmations could actually backfire in certain situations. In fact, one such backlash article in the New York Times (http://nyti.ms/Qt3ggG) described what appeared to be damning scientific evidence from an article by Wood and colleagues (2009) showing that affirmations actually lowered the mood of people with low self-esteem, presumably a major target population for the positive affirmation movement. But when I took a look at that article by Wood and colleagues, the results I found were not what I expected.
Namely, Wood and colleagues showed for the first time that positive affirmations significantly improved the mood of people with high self-esteem. This was a very exciting finding because it was the first clear scientifically sound result I had found that was consistent with my own mood improvement associated with intenSati-based affirmations.
But what about that damning finding of decreased mood for the people with low self-esteem? Even that does not seem so bad when you realize that it is has been shown that when people are given affirmations that are far from their current self-perceptions, this can make them feel worse about themselves (Brummelman et al., 2013). In the Wood study, the only affirmation used was “I am a loveable person” a statement that was likely far from the self-perceptions of the people in the low self-esteem group. This finding raises the interesting possibility that people with low self-esteem might actually be helped by less “over-the-top” affirmations; statements that are still positive and uplifting but which do not strongly conflict with their own self-perceptions.
What is the conclusion of my literature search? While affirmations may not be effective in every situation, there is clear evidence that affirmations have a positive effect on people with high self-esteem. Clearly more work on this fascinating topic is needed.
In the meantime, take the lead from intenSati and repeat after me:
“I will try hard every day!”
“I am inspired right NOW!”
This should put a spring in your step and a twinkle in your eye.
Reference List
Brummelman,E., Thomaes,S., Overbeek,G., Orobio de,C.B., van den Hout,M.A., and Bushman,B.J. (2013). On Feeding Those Hungry for Praise: Person Praise Backfires in Children With Low Self-Esteem. J. Exp. Psychol. Gen.
Wood,J.V., Perunovic,W.Q., and Lee,J.W. (2009). Positive self-statements: power for some, peril for others. Psychol. Sci. 20, 860-866.
